Another day in paradise! The March ABC’s were released today and within them are a few fundamental changes. It looks as if News UK have had a change of heart/policy and all but canned their use of bulks across all their titles which is reflected by their ‘drop’ in circulation below. The Sun retained 300 against 2,500, The Sun on Sunday abandoned them completely as opposed to carrying 2,500 in the past. The Times (IRE Edition) is down to 500 from over 3,000 the previous month and the Sunday Times retained 2,800, but still down from 5,700 in February. The

The February ABC is released. The morning market is continuing its trend of a year on year decline of 10% and no sign of any floor being hit or a slowing in this decline. The Tabloids are down 3% on the month bar the Daily Star which managed to hand on to its numbers from last month. in the Sundays, the monthly fall is the same as the daily at -3%. The year is down 9% and you have to take into account that the comparative month last year was, in the latter part, pretty dismal weather wise.   Title

The first ABC of 2019 was released earlier. Many of the papers with a monthly ABC saw a bounce in comparison to December, a notoriously slow month in the first place. However, in comparison to their sales the previous January, they are all well off the mark. The Daily Star had a bad month, dropping 1,500 on the month and those sales would seem to have gone to The Sun whose circulation is up 1,700 on the month. The Mail on Sunday gained 2,600 and the Sunday Times also up 3,600 – but both trailing where they were this time

It’s the final ABC of 2018 and allow as us to access how the last half of the year have fared for the print brands. December is down 2% on the month and 10% on December 2018 with the morning market doing marginally better than the Sunday.  The tabloids had a decent month with most of them opting to exclude their sales from 24th to 28th – which is perfectly legitimate. We have to wait until the 21st of February for the release of the ‘Island of Ireland’ report, but I suspect that the figures will be poor. When the

November ABC’s are available and there’s little to report. The market stayed level month on month and 9% down on the year.  While the morning market was dawn 2% the Sunday market stayed steady mainly down to a 4% increase in circulation for the Sunday Times and that was keeping bulks at the same level as last month

October ABC’s were released earlier and there are no real surprises. The morning tabloids took a 3% hit on the month but the Sunday tabloids had a decent month. The Mail on Sunday gained 7% or 4,000 copies on the month. The people also managed to add 7% albeit 500 copies. Beneath all the numbers is the worrying underlying trend of the year on year difference. For the past five monthly sets of figures, the year on year difference has fallen into double digits. Again, it’s not time to sound the claxon and dive under the desks, but, however, it’s

August brought some much needed good news to the beleaguered newspaper market – a month on month increase in sales and the last time that occurred was August ’17. That’s actually no coincidence as August has always been kind to publishers. This August there was a bevy of large events: the two All Ireland finals took place, whereas they were normally played in September. We had the Papal visit, but I suspect that was more in the arena of the visual media and, more importantly, the ‘foreign game’ returned (a phrase much used in GAA circles pre ’71!). All these

July ABC arrived today. A bad month for News UK where all of their titles (bar one) made the ‘top fallers’ list. The Sun on Sunday dropped 1,900, The Sun fell 1,400 and the Sunday Times lost 1,200. Each one of those titles carry and element of ‘bulks’ but their top line figures were not effected through any adjustment of their bulks as they remained the same as last month. However, perhaps they were testing the ‘price elasticity’ of their titles. Both Sun titles increased their cover prices in July. The Sun from €1.00 to €1.10 (+10%) and the Sun on

The May ABC indicates that it wasn’t the best month for the tabloids with an accumulated drop of nearly 5,000 copies – the Daily Star taking the brunt of that fall dropping 2,200 over the month. The Sun fell by 1,700 and the Mirror lost a paltry 900 copies in relative terms. The Irish Daily Mail lost 2,000 month on month (or 6%) however its sister paper, the Mail on Sunday, added 700 copies over the month and sans bulks it should be noted. Market down 1% on the month and 9% year on year. June figures are out next

April brought the tail end of the Easter Holidays which is sometimes a disruptive period for newspapers. However, it does not seem to have had an adverse effect on sales of The Sun which is showing a 3% increase month on month. Conversely, the Daily Star had a bad month dropping 2,300 copies or 5% on the month. This is marginally eclipsed by the fall in sales of the Sunday Times, which dropped 4,000 copies or 5% in April. Unaccustomed as I am to idle speculation I will posit the following: I don’t think that it’s any coincidence that a

Very little by way of change this month. The month was kind to the tabloids, particularly the Daily Star which saw its numbers increase by 2,000 on the month. It just shows you the attraction that the sport of kings has on its core readership – it’s no coincidence that a decent month for the paper coincides with the Cheltenham Festival. Having said that, maybe the steam is running out on that guaranteed circulation lift in March (which I’ll attribute to Cheltenham). This year the combined increase for the tabloids of March over February was 2,300 copies. In 2017 it